Chapter 2: Spirit Force

The next day, Yulian woke up at 6:00 am. In his previous life, he normally woke up at 7:30 am, so he thought that this must be something inherited from the previous owner of the body. Getting out of the bed, he did a few stretches and had a long look at his new room.

Yesterday, after arriving at Jack’s mansion, he immediately went to sleep. He really enjoyed sleeping on an ordinary bed after the two days spent on the streets.

Having woken up, he got out of his room and looked around the mansion. Yesterday night, when he arrived at the mansion, he was filled with the desire to sleep and completely ignored the mansion.

But as he looked around, he found that the mansion was extremely luxurious! There were no two words about it; it could probably compare to a five-star restaurant from 2015! Yulian decided that his first task in this new day was to find a bathroom in the giant mansion.

Like a little kid, he excitedly explored every inch of the mansion. There were around 20 rooms in the mansion. Some were used for storage while some were completely untouched. After some time exploring, Yulian found an extremely large, quiet room with a simple Yin-Yang poster, some cupboards and machines. After checking the cupboards, Yulian found out that they were filled with metal weapons!

Yulian did not dare to touch a single weapon. From what it looked like, this appeared to be a Fighter’s training room. This room was once used by Jack Whitney’s father.

As Yulian looked around, the quietness was shattered by a few words. “I didn’t think you would wake up this early.” The speaker was, of course, the owner of the house, Jack Whitney.

“This room is a specially built training room for fighters. My father used to train here a lot. I believe that you’ll be using this room quite often. I’ll show you everything here… after you have a bath. Come, I’ll take you to the bathroom.” With a wry smile on his face, Jack motioned Yulian to follow him.

…

After a two minute long walk, Yulian and Jack made their way to a huge, luxurious bathroom. The bathroom could have housed around 20 people inside it.

“Why would someone build such a huge bathroom? This is simply a waste of space!” Yulian said this as a simple exclamation. He did not think that Jack would actually reply.

“Don’t think about it. Let me show you around this huge bathroom.” Saying this, Jack took Yulian on a tour through the ridiculously luxurious bathroom.

“…And in this cabinet here, we store the toothbrush and toothpaste. By the way, this box has your new dental cleaning implements.” Like this, Jack finished the tour of the bathroom by gifting Yulian a box containing said toothbrush and toothpaste.

Opening the box revealed a nice, new kiddy sized toothbrush and some toothpaste. ‘This guy actually went out to buy this toothbrush for me in the middle of the night after Catalan Paulinus intimidated him?’

Answering Yulian’s unspoken question, Jack said, “Martha bought this for you when she went shopping for today’s breakfast. Oh, Martha’s the maid.”

“Maid, huh? Of course, this extremely huge mansion must have a maid to take care of it. Of course…Wait a moment. This huge mansion only has a single maid to take care of things!?”

“Yes. Martha is pretty strong! She is an Elite-level Martial Artist, a step away from becoming a Fighter! As a maid, she takes care of the entire house! She cleans, she cooks and if the need arrives, she can serve as my bodyguard too!” The stoic Monster Spoils Trader’s expression has changed into a smile of admiration as he expounded on his maid’s virtues.

“So you have fallen for your maid, huh? How immoral.” As he teased Jack, the image of a stereotypical anime maid wearing a cute French Maid outfit appeared in his mind.

“It isn’t like that! Now quickly brush yourself and have a bath! And be quick with it, otherwise your breakfast will grow cold!” Jack blushed for a moment and rushed to the dining room for his breakfast.

“Heh. This guy is a total beta!” Yulian smirked as he finally squeezed out some toothpaste to apply it on his toothbrush.

…

“How long is that kid going to spend bathing? It’s been half an hour already!” Jack complained as his maid picked up the dishes.

Just then, Yulian walked into the dining room. “Actually, I was done bathing 10 minutes earlier. I took the rest of the time to find the kitchen. This mansion is ridiculously large!”

“Speak the devil’s name and he appears… Well, quickly come here. Martha, our little genius has arrived. Reheat the dishes for him.”

Martha finished picking up the dishes just after Yulian’s arrival. Yulian had a look at the powerful maid who took care of the mansion. Dressed in a French maid outfit, Martha was a beautiful young woman. Due to her rigorous training she should have built up powerful muscles, yet Yulian could not notice such superficial signs of strength on her body!

Yulian was clear with one fact! Even if she looked beautiful, she was also an Elite-level martial artist! She was certainly the strongest person among the trio!

Yulian, feeling intimidated by looking at her, quickly took a chair beside Jack and waited for his breakfast. But just as Yulian sat down, Jack got up from his chair. “My breakfast is done. Since I have been given a holiday for a week thanks to someone, I’ll have a look at the newspaper now.” Saying this, he stalked away to look at his newspaper.

Like this, Yulian ate breakfast alone, in the company of a dangerous looking maid.

…Breakfast was finished quickly.

…

After this, as promised, Jack showed him around the training room. “Every Mansion provided to a Fighter has such Training Arena. My late father was an Advanced-Stage Warrior, hence this Arena has better facilities.”

Gesturing to the steel cupboards filled with weapons, Jack spoke. “All these cupboards are filled with training weapons. The weapons won’t last a moment against monsters. For that, you need Ke-Luo Alloy weapons. However, all these weapons have a large weight and good balance. They will suffice as training aids.”

After this, Jack motioned him to a large machine. The machine had a large screen and a fist-pad which was intended for sustaining punches. Walking up to it, he spoke. “This is a Fist Testing Machine. It measures the fist strength of a person.” He struck the fist pad with a casual punch.

“786 kg!”

Seeing the number, Yulian was rather surprised. From his information about the world, the fist strength of 786 kg was high for a civilian, since the benchmark for a Beginner Fighter was 900 kg! Also, the punch was rather casual, which meant that Jack did not use his full strength. This young man who looked like an ordinary paper-pusher was actually quite powerful!

“Try it out.” Hearing Jack’s faint words, Yulian walked up to the Fist Testing Machine and attacked with a firm punch.

“78 kg!” Seeing Yulian’s fist strength, a crease appeared on Jack’s lips. He appeared to be somewhat amused. “This fist strength is certainly good for someone like you with a skinny, malnourished body and no martial training. So it is true that Spirit Readers have naturally powerful bodies.”

“Yes… I need to train in martial arts and eat healthy food to recover from my malnourishment. That is the entire reason I needed to get employed by the HR Alliance.”

“What about school? I don’t believe you have been attending any school. Are you planning to ignore education?” This was a world where strength reigned, but being uneducated and stupid was certainly a bad choice.

“For the moment… I do not wish to attend school. I want to practice martial arts and recover the impact of malnutrition on my body. Therefore, I’ll attend school from next year.” With a soft smile, Yulian conveyed his intentions.

Yulian did not know the problem with his body, but since it had alarmed Catalan Paulinus, it would certainly be no small issue. To find more information about his condition would take some time. And any attempts to cure his condition would take even more time.

In any case, Yulian certainly did not have time to attend school and revisit concepts he had memorized since a long time!

Jack nodded. “I didn’t expect that, but I don’t mind if you stall school for a year. But remember, education is extremely important.”

After this, Jack introduced other training machines to Yulian, who eagerly memorized their functions.

…

7:30 am. Yulian was browsing the internet in his own room. Since he came to this new world, he always wanted to have access to a computer. His previous world was the world of information explosion, and the main catalyst for it was the internet. This was year 2048. From what he knew from the story of Swallowed Star, there should be a site selling Genetic Energy techniques to Fighters.

Before searching for Martial Arts to specialize in, Yulian wanted to know more about Spirit Force. Yesterday, during his meeting with Catalan Paulinus, he sensed that the veteran Fighter was hiding something about Yulian’s Spiritual Force.

Firstly, Yulian went to Google and searched for ‘Spiritual Force’. Surprisingly few results came up for that, and they were filled with obvious information. Next, Yulian searched for ‘Spiritual Force Cultivation Technique’. Zero results came up.

‘Could it be that this information isn’t available to normal civilians? Then what should I do?” After a moment’s thought, Yulian decided that Jack Whitney, as an employee of the HR Alliance, might have clearance to access the information needed by him!

…

“Jack! I need your help!” After 10 minutes of searching, Yulian finally found the owner of the house, Jack Whitney.

“Why do you need my help?”

“As a civilian, my access to the information on the internet is pretty restricted. Even though you are a civilian too, you are also a Monster Spoils Trader and have regular interaction with fighters so I thought that…!”

“Well, you guessed right. I have access to Warlord-level threads on the HR Alliance site!”

“That’s good. Come with me!” Yulian almost dragged Jack to his room. “Geez! No need to be so excited…”

…

“So you were searching on Google.com, huh? It’s a pretty old search engine without the latest AI algorithms… ” As he said this, Jack almost instantly typed up the name of a site.

“Pretty fast typing speed…” Yulian could only watch on as Jack typed at a blindingly fast speed.

“That’s the HR Alliance Search Engine. It’s specially configured for Fighters belonging to the Alliance. As a Monster Spoilers Trader, I have the permission to view threads available to Warlord-level fighters.” Jack quickly logged in and typed up a User ID and Password. Now what topic do you want to search on?”

“Spirit Force!”

In less than a second, the words were typed out on the monitor, showing quite a few numbers of results.

“Well, I’ll go away now. I have logged in with my credentials, so you can check all the threads you want to.” Saying this, Jack quickly left the room. For a moment, Yulian wondered why Jack left in such a hurry.

Discarding the thought, Yulian quickly clicked on the first thread in the list. He carefully began reading through the information that had popped up. “Spiritual Force is an extremely rare power possessed by Spirit Readers. It allows the fighter to use telekinesis powers to control objects! It is rumored that there are powerful Spirit Reader techniques that can directly attack the soul, killing without any physical damage! Also, Spirit Readers have a greater talent in cultivating Genetic Energy!

Spirit Readers can access their mental realm in the space between their two eyebrows. Inside the Mental Realm of a Spirit Reader, there is a large amount of mist in the Mental Realm! This denotes the level of Spiritual Force available to the Spirit Reader! Also, very rarely, there is a liquid, semi-solid or solid object floating within the Mental Realm! This object denotes the latent Spiritual Force of the Spirit Reader! As long as the Spirit Reader continues cultivating his Genetic Energy, the object will gradually dissolve into gaseous Spirit Force!

Unfortunately, powerful Spirit Readers are extremely rare! This is because most powerful Spirit Readers awaken early, before they begin training their body! When they awaken as a Spirit Reader, a huge amount of powerful spiritual force explodes in their sub-consciousness! If their awakening fails, they might become a retard or a vegetable!

Fighters whose parents are also powerful fighters are born with stronger genes! If a child of two powerful Fighters is also Spirit Reader, due to his powerful genes, he will be able to withstand the powerful Spiritual Force! This person will suffer from migraines and might also fall into comas due to the large gap between physical and mental strength! When he begins training to be a Warrior, the headaches will gradually decrease until he finally awakens Spiritual Force!”

After that, Yulian read the other threads about Spirit Readers and Spiritual Force. Mostly, the same information was copied in them. There wasn’t any information about a Spiritual Force cultivation technique.

…

After reading all the articles, Yulian fell into thought. He had wondered how the previous occupant of his body had died. From reading the posts, he could guess that his soul had departed the body during the awakening of Spiritual Force, allowing Yulian’s soul to take over his body.

During the three days that Yulian had experienced in the world, he didn’t have the slightest hint if a headache. Yulian decided that perhaps, the failed Awakening of Spiritual Force which killed the previous owner of his body, had also significantly increased his strength to the level that his body could safely handle Spiritual Force!

However, Yulian remembered Catalan Paulinus’s words, “Your Spiritual Force is strong! Too strong, perhaps. It’s a pity that your body is too weak. Due to the imbalance between your Spirit and Body…”

Catalan Paulinus specifically said that Yulian’s body was weak! Thus, Yulian’s previous hypothesis of the strength of his body having increased… must be wrong!

He tried to connect Catalan Paulinus’s words to the information on Spiritual Force he had read on the internet. ‘If a child of two powerful Fighters is also Spirit Reader, due to his powerful genes, he will be able to withstand the powerful Spiritual Force! This person will suffer from migraines and might also fall into comas due to the large gap between physical and mental strength!’

Slowly, Yulian began analyzing the information he possessed to form a new hypothesis.

What will happen to a child possessing powerful Spiritual Force, who unfortunately does not possess powerful genes? Since his body does not have the ability to withstand Spiritual Force, he will not have migraines or fall into a coma.

When a child of a Wargod might have a migraine or fall into a coma, the child not blessed with such genes will not be able to bear the strain of his Spiritual Force. He will simply die.

“Since my body isn’t strong enough to weather my Spiritual Force, I’ll simply die?” Yulian said these words with a numb expression on his face.